Reforms for Improved Efficiency in Public Budgeting and Finance: Improvements, Disappointments, and Work-in-Progress

The past half-century has brought heightened expectations for what systems of budgeting and finance may be expected to deliver for the public. From systems to provide a first defense against theft and gross misappropriation, they have become systems to help lawmakers direct public resources where they can give the best public return, to help managers efficiently utilize resources under their control, and to communicate plans and results to the public. Government fiscal systems have developed more useful expenditure classification, established new measures for identifying public performance, brought nontraditional spending into control systems, and made finances considerably more transparent. Systems should, in combination with robust democratic institutions, make the public sector perform in the best interests of the citizenry. But in the face of great fiscal system improvements, governments struggle with staying fiscally sustainable, with meeting financial obligations to vulnerable populations, and even with avoiding default, receivership, or bankruptcy. Even as systems improve, government finances decline amid considerable private sector prosperity. Research over the past decade has done little to aid or explain the sweeping expectation and limited success of budget systems to transform essential elements of governance. It is the purpose of this paper to review progress in the development of robust fiscal systems, identify the major obstacles and failures, and link this evidence to the record of recent governmental financial distress, paying particular attention to the struggles of American governments. The broader questions needing to be addressed are the same questions at the forefront of public sector finance 100 years ago; however, the present focus has not been on these broader implications.